Investigative Reporting

If you are passionate about investigative reporting, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York is the place you should be.

You’ll learn how to conceive and execute investigative stories from journalists with years of experience digging into a wide range of subjects, from City Hall to corporate boardrooms to global espionage.

We offer 10 courses teaching investigative and data skills. These are above and beyond courses all students take to ground them in reporting and research methods, ethical and legal constraints, Freedom of Information laws, fact-checking, and transparency.

Newmark students have won, or been finalists for, the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ award for best student investigation in the country six times. This is arguably the most important investigative honor for student reporters. Other national awards have come from Editor and Publisher, Society of Professional Journalists, and Associated Collegiate Press.

Our students’ investigative stories have been published by NBC News, Reveal, WNYC, Buzzfeed, and The Daily Beast, and picked up by Politico, the NY Daily News, Miami Herald, CBS, and more.

Graduates have gone on to investigative careers at major news organizations, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Pro Publica, Scripps, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Fusion, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsday. Four alums have shared Pulitzer prizes and two others were Pulitzer finalists.

The school has a fund that supports travel and other costs as students pursue investigative stories or attend investigative conferences. We have a scholarship fund for members of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting and have investigative fellowships with The Marshall Project and Frontline for new graduates. Each year, we bestow on an alum the Stephen B. Shepard Prize for Investigative Reporting in honor of our founding dean.

Join us and learn the skills to become a fierce and effective watchdog for the public.